A matter of circumstances
by Angeleen C. A
Summary: Details that, put together, lead to something Mark would never have expected to happen... SLASH


Disclaimer: Of course I don't own the characters. You all know that Jonathan Larson created them, don't you?

Warning: Not for homophobic people...but I guess you can't like Rent if you are.

Thanks to** Taylor** for beta'ing this for me.

Author's note: I know Mark's film is finished at the end of the movie, but it's not at the end of the musical.

**A matter of circumstances**

It was, Mark guessed, all a matter of circumstances. Details that, put together, had led to something he would never have expected to happen.

First, room arrangements. Since Mimi no longer had her own apartment, she was now living in the loft, and slept, of course, in Roger's room. Which meant that if Collins wanted to turn back and live with them - and they all insisted that he should, because it was so depressing for him to be alone now that Angel was gone - he couldn't share that room with Roger as they used to before he had moved in order to work at MIT. So, he had to sleep in the other bedroom. Mark's. But Mark's bedroom had been Maureen's, too, until she left him and went to live with Joanne. Consequently, there still was only one (double) bed in it. And too little space to add another one, unless they replaced Mark's, which they had planned to do, but still hadn't done. That was the second detail.

Then there was a third detail - well, not exactly a detail. It was probably the most important of all.

Mark was sad - to say the least. And he felt guilty about that because he wasn't the one who was supposed to miss Angel up to the point of feeling like crying every time he thought about him. Or her. He still couldn't decide how to refer to...him? Her? Whatever.

Collins was still very sad too, of course, but he didn't let it show.

That night, Mark had worked on his film, so he had seen a lot of pictures of Angel on the screen and he couldn't get them out of his head. That's why there were tears in his eyes when Collins entered their room.

_**x x x**_

"What's wrong?" Collins asked, surprise stopping him for a second or two in the doorway.

"Nothing," Mark replied automatically, without looking his way. "Never mind. It's only my film."

Collins shut the door and sat down on his side of the bed.

"I thought you were satisfied with your footage," he said, still confused. "You said it was great."

"Roger did."

"Okay, but you agreed."

"Yeah..."

Collins expected an explanation, but, since Mark kept on staring at the ceiling and said nothing more, he asked, "So?"

Mark sighed. He didn't want to tell the truth. Not to _him_.

"It hurts to see us so happy," he said instead.

Not completely a lie...

"Aren't you happy now?" Collins asked, although it was obvious that no, Mark wasn't happy at all at the moment. "Roger's back, Mimi's better..."

"Angel's missing," Mark muttered, giving up trying to find another excuse for having the blues. His voice was barely audible, but Collins couldn't possibly not to catch his late lover's name.

"I miss her too," he said, also in hardly more than a whisper.

Mark eventually looked at him to reply in an apologetic tone, "I know. I'm stupid."

"Stupid?"

"To be unable to hide that I feel bad when it must be so much worse for you."

"You do have the right to feel bad," Collins assured. "And to let it show. It's okay."

Instinctively, he had come a little closer to Mark, stretching out a hand to wipe a tear from his friend's cheek as he would do for a child, and, the next moment, Mark found himself sobbing in Collins' arms without even really knowing why.

He knew why he had started feeling sad, of course, but crying like that was definitely exaggerated, not to mention clinging on Collins in a desperate way as if he didn't know that, of the two of them, the one who had all the reasons to be depressed wasn't him.

_Why is there always someone who's worse than me when I need to be comforted? _he wondered.

It had been the same when Maureen had left him. Roger had more trouble, so Mark wasn't allowed to complain.

"Sorry," he managed to say as he tried - rather unsuccessfully - to calm down. "It's not only...about Angel. It's also...everything that happened before...and what's bound to happen later, too."

Because he was the one of them to survive, as he had told Roger when they had fought stupidly after Angel's funeral... Well, Maureen and Joanne would still be there too, but they were a couple and had their own apartment. They wouldn't be there all the time.

Collins held him tighter. It was a strange feeling, holding Mark like that, for more than the brief moment of a simple hug and - what was even more troubling - in a bed. But it was nice to have someone in his arms again, even if it was only a friend and if he was weeping uncontrollably.

"Don't think about that, Marky. No day but today," Collins reminded Mark in what he hoped was a soothing voice, gently caressing his friend's hair without realizing that the nickname and the gesture might be considered a little too affectionate.

However, that was not what bothered Mark.

"Don't call me Marky!" he protested, looking up with a mock angry look. "You sound like one of those silly messages Alexi used to leave on the answering machine!"

Collins couldn't help smiling, amused, and content to see that Mark had stopped crying, too. Although he hadn't meant to, it seemed that he had succeeded in distracting "Marky" from his somber thoughts only by calling him like his ex-boss did.

"At least I didn't say _baby_..." he pointed out playfully.

"Or _pookie_," Mark added, rolling his eyes at the memory of Maureen calling him that in front of everyone.

Collins smiled again, and Mark smiled back, wiping his drenched cheeks that turned slightly pink as he realized how ridiculously pathetic he must have looked.

"Thanks," he said rather tentatively.

"For not calling you pookie?" Collins teased him.

"For comforting me, you idiot! And for not telling me I wasn't supposed to be the one worrying about the future."

"Well, you're the one who'll have to live alone, and I do know that's hard..."

Collins' tone of voice was calm, but Mark could tell that the apparent detachment hid a lot of pain. Without thinking, he leaned to kiss him on the cheek and whispered, "You're not alone," before settling himself again with his head on his friend's shoulder.

Only when Collins said his name (not Marky, this time) in a hesitant way that revealed a great confusion did Mark know he probably should have kept in mind the fact that his friend was gay. And missed his _lover_...who probably had curled up in his side just like that every night.

"Sorry," he said, jumping away. "I didn't mean to...take Angel's place. I mean... I'm _really_ stupid."

"No!"

The two young men just stayed still and silent for a few seconds, Collins' hand on Mark's arm to stop him from running away, each of them wondering what the other one was thinking.

"You're not taking Angel's place," Collins eventually said, letting go of Mark, who didn't move. "Well...technically, you did. In a way. But I'm sure she doesn't mind. She knows you're straight, anyway."

"She knows you're not," Mark replied automatically.

And they both burst out laughing when they realized that the use of the feminine pronoun made the affirmation sound like total nonsense.

"I always thought it was a bit illogical that you talked about him as if he was a girl when you're not supposed to like girls," Mark confessed.

"He liked to pretend he was a girl," Collins said simply.

"So you pretended you were straight?"

"I guess you can see it that way..."

"You do look straight, anyway," Mark remarked thoughtfully. "More than me, as Maureen would say."

Collins was not sure if he was allowed to laugh, but it was hard to help it.

"Did she really say that?" he asked, highly amused at the thought.

"Oh yes, she did! And she said more. She's the only girl I've ever loved, so she tried to convince me I could like boys as well... Obviously because she likes boys _and _girls. And she kept insisting until..."

Mark paused, unsure he should finish the sentence. But, of course, it was too late - he had awoken Collins' curiosity.

"Until?"

"Until I admitted it was _possible_," Mark said, looking at his friend in a way that told clearly, "Don't you dare make fun of me about that!"

Collins didn't say anything that could be called a mockery, but his smile was a little too wide when he commented, "Just so she'd stop annoying you, of course..."

"Of course."

It was true, Mark told himself. _Yes_, it was. He had only wanted to make Maureen stop.

"And, of course, it didn't work..." Collins added.

"Of course," Mark repeated, avoiding his friend's eye.

He really didn't want to hear the question that was coming now.

"She asked whether you had ever found a guy attractive, didn't she?"

Mark nodded, more and more ill at ease.

"And, according to your embarrassment, I bet the answer is yes!" Collins exclaimed, patting Mark's cheek. "But don't worry, I won't tell anyone..._if_ you tell me the whole story."

"That's blackmailing!"

"I know. No need to call Joanne to ask what I risk doing that. Rewiring the ATM was worse, anyway."

Mark grinned at the hearing of the last sentence.

"True... Thanks for reminding me that. Now I can blackmail you too! I'll tell the cops if..."

"You'll never do that."

"I will."

"You won't..."

"I _will_!"

"You won't," Collins insisted, "because you don't want me to go to jail...and even less to be in trouble for using the money."

Okay, he had a point.

"Right, I won't. But still... You can't threaten me to tell the others I had some kind of crush on a boy at 17 just because I'd rather not linger on the subject. It was ridiculous. Plus, I barely saw him once."

"Interesting pieces of information... You do call it a crush, not only a simple acknowledgement that the guy looked hot. You were old enough to be convinced you were perfectly straight but he still managed to trouble you up to the point where you couldn't not to notice. And the way you said 'I barely saw him once' suggests you wished you could see him again..."

Mark gave a sigh of resignation and laid back on his pillow, doing his best to look detached.

"You're way too good at reading between the lines. Okay, I confess, I was totally fascinated by the vague red reflections in his hair and the different shades of green in his eyes. So I probably stared at him too much and scared him," he concluded with a little laugh of embarrassment.

Collins, who had settled down on his own pillow, was looking at his friend thoughtfully. He didn't think he had the right to tease him anymore. There was something in Mark's voice and in the dreamy look on his face that suggested he somewhat wished he could meet that boy again, and, maybe, explore a roundabout way that, who knows, might prove itself happier than the straight one he was used to following.

"I won't repeat it to any of the others," Collins promised in a low voice as not to disturb Mark's daydreaming. "Shall I turn off the light now?"

Mark answered with a vaguely approving sound and Collins got up to reach for the switch, then groped his way back to the bed, accidentally brushing Mark as he laid down beside him.

"Sorry," he said, moving away slightly.

"No, you can stay! I'm cold."

"No wonder, with that damaged heat... I don't suppose you'll mind if I hold you, since I already did a moment ago? That will keep us warm."

Mark didn't reply, but, as Collins put an arm around him, he instinctively moved closer and turned to hold him too.

"I've been missing Maureen a lot for that," he whispered without even realizing he was talking out loud before Collins laughed.

"Not only for that, I guess."

"In winter, mostly... We'll keep this bed until spring, won't we?"

"If that's what you want... I must say I'm quite surprised. I thought it made you feel uncomfortable."

Mark smiled to himself. He really didn't feel uncomfortable at all at the moment.

"Perhaps I'm just too tired to think clearly," he said. "Or I really don't mind. After all, it's...comfortable."

"Looks like it is..."

They kept silent for a little while after that and, without thinking, Collins started caressing Mark's hair. Then his hand slid on his friend's neck and Mark let it. He had been alone for so long... He needed little marks of affection like that. So, since Collins was willing to give some to him, why should he refuse them? It was nothing, really...

As the hand moved lower again, under the collar of the old sweater he wore as a pajama top, Mark wondered how far Collins would go, and shivered at the thought of what he could do.

"Still cold?"

Oh no, it wasn't cold! Nor scary, even if Mark did worry about what could happen.

"No, it's okay..."

Something in the tone of his voice was practically begging Collins to resume whatever he had been doing, and they were both aware of it. Collins hesitated, though, because he had no idea of what, in Mark's mind, was classified as acceptable, and what was not.

Mark looked up. Actually, he didn't really see anything, since it was dark and he hadn't even his glasses on, but he knew his face was now very, very close to Collins', and...no, he didn't want to analyze what he felt. It was too weird.

Collins hardly could see Mark, but he could hear him breathe in a way that let him guess he was troubled. Did he realize how tempting it was for Collins to have him so close? Could it be he was tempted too?

He definitely was. And knew it. And didn't care if it was not normal. If only he could _see_!

Surprise made Collins jump slightly as Mark's hand touched his face.

"Can't see," Mark explained hastily. "It's annoying."

A fingertip brushed the corner of Collins' mouth, and he kissed it, causing a new shiver that, this time, he knew wasn't due to cold. So he stopped worrying about what Mark would think. It was fairly obvious he wouldn't mind at all...

He barely had to move an inch closer. Mark had moved forward too, at the exact same time. They let their lips touch for a brief moment, smiled - still so close they could sense each other's smile - then, forgetting all hesitation, kissed far less timidly, longer and, finally, absolutely not chastely anymore.

Collins held Mark in a tight embrace that felt wonderfully safe and warm because it was so strong - completely different, of course, from Maureen's passionate but comparatively weak kind of hug. Mark marveled at the fact that he actually loved the feeling of being held by another man. Not to mention the kiss.

As for Collins... Of course, for him, there was nothing unusual - except that the person he was kissing was Mark, and this forced him to remember he couldn't allow himself to do exactly what he would have liked. However, when Mark started kissing him again after they stopped for about half a second only, he thought his friend might, after all, be willing to go just a little farther.

Besides asking him - which wouldn't be very easy since Mark didn't seem to want to let go on his lips - there was only one way to know. So Collins eventually slipped a hand under Mark's clothes, concentrating on "decent" spots to begin with.

Mark didn't protest. Actually, he didn't even seem to pay attention at first. But he was perfectly aware of what Collins was doing and was only trying not to show how much he liked that, because it would be embarrassing. He couldn't help some automatic reactions, tough, so it quickly became obvious he really, _really_ liked the contact of Collins' hand on his skin.

Collins smiled, amused, when Mark moved back just a little too late to stop him from noticing something very interesting.

"Didn't mean to scare you," he said, pretending to think Mark was shocked.

"No, it's okay!" Mark replied immediately, grabbing Collins' hand so he couldn't take it away. "I...I like it. It's just...I don't know..."

Collins held him close again then gave him a little kiss.

"You're not forced to do anything. The best part of what we could do wouldn't be safe for you, anyway. So...just let me do something about this, okay?"

Mark merely nodded in answer. He really didn't trust himself to speak - not with Collins touching him _there_. Through the clothes only for now, but still...

A moment later, Mark was clinging to Collins even more than when he had been crying, doing his best to keep more or less quiet in case Roger and Mimi weren't asleep yet. Collins smiled again. Mark was so cute... And, straight or not, he obviously didn't mind at all being half-undressed then intimately caressed by another man.

_**x x x**_

Yes, Mark thought, it had all been a matter of circumstances. It would never have happened otherwise. And now he just had to forget about it. Unless...

But no, there was no way they could do that again.

_So why did you buy those things, then?_ he mocked himself, blushing at the thought of what was now hidden in a drawer of his bedside table.

Roger saved him from answering his own question by asking another one, that sounded completely innocent.

"Do you have any thumbtacks? Mimi needs some to hang up a poster."

"They must still be in my room. I pinned a new picture to the wall the other day," Mark said absent-mindedly.

Roger had already opened the door before he could get up, so he let him have a look by himself.

Then he remembered exactly where the box of thumbtacks was. In the same drawer as...

He jumped on his feet and ran inside his room.

"Wait! I know where..."

Too late. Roger had found the thumbtacks and, according to his amused smile, he had also seen another box...

"Got a new girlfriend?" Roger asked in a casual tone.

Mark felt his cheeks burn and knew Roger could see them turning scarlet.

"N...no," he muttered in a very low voice.

"So why..."

"Just in case," Mark interrupted abruptly, so Roger would see he really didn't want to talk about it.

Roger obviously didn't believe him, but he knew better than insisting immediately when his friend refused to tell him something. He'll surely try again later. For now, he just shrugged and left the room, wondering who was that girl Mark didn't want to talk about, and how he had met her.

_Just in case, yes_, Mark told himself.

And because it would be only fair to...well, thank Collins for what he had done the night before.

Then they would see. No day but today.


End file.
